I have finally found a bj74 but with a differane it has a 4500 efi engine runs like a charm loads of power with h55f gearbox spent days driving around wild coast in the transkei absolutely amazing.
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- Thread starter Glassco
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Welcome to Mud. It's customary to post pictures of your cruiser and yours sounds rather interesting.
What is the meaning of "transkei"?
What is the meaning of "transkei"?
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Firstly the Transkei is a area just north of were I live it used to be a separate country to South Africa. I check on the gearbox it is a h55f 5 speed but it has an custom made bell housing made to take 4.5 efi engine. I spent around. 10 years looking for this car. It was by pure floor I found it , drove 1500 km to go fetch it spent 4 days repairing rear diff,replace syncro in gearbox,replace front crown wheel carrier and radiator then drove her home left polokwane at 12 in the afternoon and arrived home next day at 10 in the morning what a trip.sorry polokwane is close to Zimbabwe. I will take some pics on the weekend , still some things to sort out.
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These are some pics
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Here is the heart of this fantastic car
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- #9
Hi burbot the history of this vehicle is quite something . From what I see the original color was black and silver frp top. Then their is traces of military green which was put on in Botswana were it was sold to a elderly man from Johannesburg and he brought it to South Africa before he could finish the rebuild he passed away . His best friend then bought his business and the cruiser was part of the purchase and in his friends memory he completed the build.the next challenge was to license the cruiser which took around 9 months of back and forth of paper work I think after all said and done he found the cruiser a little hard ride and sold her on to a guy who worked in the mining industry were the cruiser was used to tow gen sets. Then a young guy who did construction and he used the cruiser as a daily runner. This is when I discovered her late one Friday I was looking around on the net and was looking for swb land cruisers for sale and clicked on images and their was a picture of a land cruiser driving out of a dam and clicked on it and it had for sale written next to the picture and a phone number so I phoned and the guy told me he was in Polokwane 1500 km from were I live so I told this guy I will see him on Wednesday and planned the trip and drove up with a friend as said in earlier post all repairs done and drove back . This area was going through the longest drought in 50 years so you can imagine the temperature and the aircon was not working other than being absolutely boiling hot the heat of exhaust and tarred roads had become so hot that the tar was almost wet as we travelled back. But the cruiser ran just perfectly the only problem was the rear diff breather was blocked so we had some diff oil leak out so I cut the breather of and all went well from then on. Got home safely.
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Nice to know where it's been and the history eh. All I know of mine is po had it garaged since 02 and only put 5000 on it in that time. Who put the other 449000km I'll never know. Why they did stuff with a welder and not hardware, who knows.
That's an odd looking dash. I don't think I have seen that one before. Is there a battery gauge and oil pressure gauge on the right?
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- #12
No what you see is all I would like to have a tachometer and the rest but don't know if that is possible
Hello,
From the look of that dash it does not seem to be a BJ74 but rather an FZJ74. Either that or the engine swap included the panel. Does it have leaf springs in the front axle?
The engine does not have a distributor but three coils, which makes it a late model 1FZ-FE.
I have not seen this model outside the Middle East.
It appears you got yourself a rare Cruiser.
Juan
From the look of that dash it does not seem to be a BJ74 but rather an FZJ74. Either that or the engine swap included the panel. Does it have leaf springs in the front axle?
The engine does not have a distributor but three coils, which makes it a late model 1FZ-FE.
I have not seen this model outside the Middle East.
It appears you got yourself a rare Cruiser.
Juan
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- #14
Hi Juan you are correct the dash was part of the engine replacement and the front axle does have leaf springs i would very much like to have a tachco and oil pressure gauge and volt meter but dont know if it is possible and if so what would work.
Central and some south America and Middle east get these.
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Hi Theo have you got any idea were to get a rear bumper for a bj74 I have tried most of the guys in Sa and it seems no one has made one for this cruiser do you know someone who could build a decent one with spare wheel carrier.
I would think that one of a troopie would work?
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Correct and I am thinking about hunting a few down.
Believe it or not I have also seen it in a swb 70, even has 4.5L fender badges.
Cheers